BilmBlog500

I saw around 100 movies that opened in 2014, which is a pretty typical year for me.  Rarely less than 90, hard to see more than 120. Of those 100 movies. Boyhood is the best. Here are the next dozen or so movies that I consider to be my 90th percentile for the year: 2.  Whiplash This is the one other film from 2014 that I've seen twice, though it's possible there are one or two others I'd try to see again. JK Simmons won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and the film also won Oscars for editing and for sound mixing. Simmons is the leader of the top ensemble at a Juilliard-like performing arts school, and Miles Teller is a student who yearns to be playing drums in this ensemble.  And the two are both crazy.  Simmons might be an actual psychopath, or he might just take a little bit too seriously the idea that you've got to tear down in order to build up.  Which, just to say, is the entire premise behind boot camp for the US armed forces.  But what would drive Miles Tell

The Oscars forced me to sit down with my print-out of the movies I'd seen that opened in 2014, and without further ado... 1.  Boyhood The very notion of the movie is crazy.  The challenges in making a film with a 12-year shooting schedule go far beyond anything.  You can't even compare it to the 7/14/21/etcUp documentary series by Michael Apted that has followed a group of kids from 7 until very close to today with films every 7 years.  It's one thing to just get together every seven years and see what's happened.  You don't have to worry about what happened in the intervening, you just have to report on it.  And in any event, Boyhood director Richard Linklater has already replicated that with his Before Sunrise/Before Sunset/Before Midnight series of films with Ethan Hawke and Juliette Delpy. Let's look at this: You can't sign a contract for longer than 7 years for an actor/actress, so for your primary cast members, there's the chance that you could be

12:23 AM: NY Times Oscar blog notes omissions of Roger Ebert and Joan Rivers from the in memoriam list. 12:09 AM: Or in the R-Rated words of @mattbilmes  GOD DAMN IT BIRDMAN WON BEST PICTURE GODDAMN IT SISOALEHFIWPALCKRKWKFNDGOOWOALNFNEOW 12:05 AM: AMPAS got it wrong.  Boyhood is Best! 11:49 PM:  Wait, wasn't that guy a seat filler? 11:47 PM:  And if you compare Graham Moore's speech to Patricia Arquette's you can understand why the editor in me gives Arquette's speech an A for content and a C- for organization. 11:45 PM: Sigh.  The highlight of Graham Moore's speech followed by my disappointment over Best Director. 11:43 PM: me not happy.  wrong director win Oscar. 11:35 PM:  Another mild surprise with Imitation Game winning for Adapted Screenplay.  It is based on a book represented by our friends at the Zeno Agency. 11:30 PM: So the Rivoli Theatre where The Sound of Music premiered.  It was located at 49th and Broadway, with a ornate facade.  The facade was torn d

Chuck Wendig just did a Terrible Minds post telling authors not to "pre-reject" their work, i.e., to finish their novel, say it's not good enough, and then dump it into the drawer or the trunk on top of all the other not good enough thing.  And maybe I'm reading too much into what Chuck says, or maybe I should understand that it should be implied that Chuck is taking a position really far on one side as a counterweight and not as an actual "position" position.  But as I'm reading his post, he doesn't say it's ever right to take a manuscript and put it into the pile inside the drawer inside the trunk. And that's wrong. I'm going to reject his thesis in two ways that are flip sides of the same coin, the you coming to me, and the me taking your manuscript to the world. In both instances, I note the old, true and wise saying "you've got one chance to make a first impression." If I as an agent look at three or four bad books by